Once upon a time, there was a senior geography teacher and she had a year 11 class filled with 10, bright and diligent students. One day, the teacher gave the students their marked assessments back. 

To her surprise, despite the generally high quality and marks awarded, the students seemed unhappy. The teacher, who had spent many years developing relationships with these students, asked “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy?” 

To which one brave student replied, “I am, Ms, but… I just wished your feedback ended on a positive note.” 

This statement shocked the teacher, even more when all the students agreed. This prompted the teacher to reflect on the way she gave feedback, so that the next time, her students would feel uplifted and positive, no matter their results, rather than defeated.

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In case you didn’t guess, the teacher in that story was me (surprise!) and that was a real-life scenario I found myself in a few years ago now, while teaching in a secondary school. I was recently reminded of this experience through a conversation with one of the people who co-marks with me in a subject, and through some student emails and comments from my current students about feedback. And so, in typical Krystal style, I decided I needed to blog about feedback!

During my days as a secondary school teacher, one of the schools I worked for had a very strict formula for teacher feedback at the end of a task. This was to ensure that all teachers were giving adequate feedback to their students which addressed specific things. The end-of-task formula was:

1. Start with the good stuff – I would identify all the things I liked about the student’s work.
2. Highlight areas of concern – this is where I would indicate areas of the task where the student’s work did not meet a certain standard (whether that standard was a pass or the standard of the rest of their work; this depended on the student).
3. Finish with what the student needed to do in the next task – here I would point the students towards one or two strategies that would directly impact their approach to the next task to, hopefully, work towards improvement.

The approach to feedback from this school certainly ensured that students were made aware of the good, the bad, and what’s next, and on the whole, I do not disagree with this approach.

However…

As my brave year 11 student suggested, I did not consider the state my students would be in after focusing on the good, the bad, and then the improvement. I had forgotten that it’s the last thing we read that tends to stick with us, especially if we’re starting with the good and never circling back to it! My brave year 11 student reminded me that if the majority of my comments, and especially the finishing statements, were negative, then this is what they were most likely to remember. This approach could even have a negative effect on the student’s perception of their task, no matter how well they had done. To put it even more simply, it could leave a bitter taste in their mouth! I was not ok with this…

I know that for many reading this, this will seem like a fairly obvious observation, and will already be thinking of the ‘solution’ that I am about to propose, but I’m not me if I don’t process my thoughts through blogging, so stay with me!

The solution to this formula is a relatively simple fix. Back in the day (yes, I feel I’ve been at this long enough now to use this term, especially given all the developments I’ve been through as an educator [but that’s a post for another time]), I was operating under the ‘sandwich’ approach to feedback. You’ve probably heard of it but it goes like this:

1. Something positive;
2. Something to work on (or whatever else you fill your feedback with);
3. Finish with something positive.

Simple, right? I cannot believe that I had forgotten my original approach to feedback. Although I acknowledge that the directive to follow the strict formula from my school probably had something to do with it, I realised that I could still add something positive at the end of my comments and still be following orders. By making this small change, I would still be meeting my school’s requirements for feedback AND I would be taking my students’ emotional response and mental health into consideration while giving feedback. I am not ashamed to say that I felt embarrassed and disappointed in myself for forgetting the fact that feedback is inherently scary and confronting, especially for students who are still learning how to accept and process feedback! 

So, I adjusted my approach to the next task, making sure I finished with a couple of positive comments, and the change in the attitude of my students was quite significant. They were not defeated. They were ready to dig in and act on the other feedback I had given them. They asked questions and wanted clarification to make sure they were going to be able to make the improvements I was suggesting. Essentially, by taking care to highlight what my students were doing that was good, I was showing them that they could do hard things, just with a little help.

Now, you might be thinking what has all this to do with my current students and marking team? Well, I think somewhere along the line of marking approximately 350 odd “graded” assessments (and by this I mean I am not including the additional satisfactory/unsatisfactory tasks I’ve marked) since 2022, all of them online with little to no contact with students after returning assessments, I’d forgotten this important lesson about feedback. I am removed from my students’ joy, surprise, disappointment, frustration, devastation, excitement, shock, confusion, relief, and all those other things you feel when looking at returned assessments. I don’t get to see the ‘human’ behind the returned paper, and so I think I had forgotten how impactful a return to the positive can be when giving feedback.

Therefore, I am recommitting to the sandwich approach in my feedback. I will highlight the good, the bad, and what’s next, and then circle back to the good. My students deserve to feel positive about their academic journey, no matter what grade they receive, and I know my approach to giving feedback can influence this.

So, what do you think? Have you forgotten to return to the good? Or is this something you always do? Have you noticed a difference in your students when you do this? Does your school prescribe your feedback formula? I’d love to know!

PS. My team of markers is absolutely wonderful, and many of them already do this beautifully, but I am also committing to checking in with each of them to ensure they are using this approach to feedback as well.